


Richie Tozier Comes Out

by squilf



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-24 16:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20709032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squilf/pseuds/squilf
Summary: Richie performs his own material. And then has to deal with what happens next.Set shortly afterIT: Chapter Two (2019), so contains some spoilers.





	1. New Material

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themilitarymonk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themilitarymonk/gifts).

> So I saw _IT: Chapter Two (2019)_ last night, and I was _not_ expecting that movie to go and break my heart like that.
> 
> I’m sure this idea has already been done – fandom moves fast! – but I just couldn’t get it out of my head. I’ve done a bit of stand-up comedy myself so I really liked the idea of writing a set (or a bit of one) in a fic.
> 
> This fic is dedicated to themilitarymonk, who has fallen deep into the sewers of love for this movie.

“Please stop flapping,” says Richie.

He’s about to walk on stage, and he’s nervous, and his manager really isn’t helping.

“Okay, okay,” Todd says, “You just seem… on edge.”

“Well, so would you if you’d seen my new material.”

Todd grimaces.

“_Please _ tell me you’re not doing the pedophile stuff again. I told you then and I’ll tell you now, I may have pre-written apologies saved in my email drafts but I _ don’t want to use them_.”

Richie pushes past him and onto the stage.

He barely hears the applause, his heart is beating so fast. He just focuses on grabbing the microphone, hands tight and clammy around the plastic.

“Hey, how’s everyone doing tonight?” he asks, “You good?”

The audience cheer a little – the same expectant cheer audiences always give at the start of the night. There are so many of them. This is a sell-out tour. A sell-out tour for Richie Trashmouth, who makes rude jokes about masturbating and drinking and fucking women. A sell-out tour for a sell-out.

“You know, I’m doing something a bit different tonight,” Richie says, “No, I’m not going to take my clothes off – although I know you’d all like me to.”

He raises his eyebrows suggestively, eliciting a few cheers and wolf whistles.

“You know, that _ was _ a joke but some of you actually seem to be quite into it.”

Richie makes a show of shrugging off one shoulder of his shirt, unbuttoned over a t-shirt, to some enthusiastic _ woos _.

“Okay, I think that’s enough of that,” he says, straightening himself up, “No, what makes tonight different is, I’m doing one hundred percent my own material, never seen before. Yeah, you might want to just leave now.”

The audience laughs.

“The thing is,” Richie says, resting his hand on the mic stand, “I realised recently that good comedy, _ really _ good comedy, is brave. So, instead of telling you easy jokes about a girlfriend I don’t have – I thought I’d tell you something difficult. Something true. So, where to start?” 

Richie looks up, pretends to think.

“Oh yeah, I’m gay.”

He lets it sit there for a small moment, just enough to let it sink in. To let them wonder if he’s telling the truth or just joking.

“That’s the big one, really, you kind of need to know that for all the other jokes to make sense.”

He laughs.

“Sorry, that was weird. I, um. I have never said that out loud before. So I’m really glad I started with just…” he gestures to the audience, a huge sweep of his arm, “Like, a thousand people.”

They start clapping, and the sound grows and builds and gives him strength.

“Okay, okay,” Richie says, waving them away after a few moments, “You start like that now and I’m going to expect a standing ovation and fucking _ flowers _ later. We have a _ lot _ of my personal trauma to go through and laugh at this evening.”

And he does. He tells the truth about realising he was different. About what happened when other kids realised the same thing.

“I had to be careful growing up. When you’re a gay Jewish kid with glasses, bullies know they’ve _ really _ hit the jackpot. Enough people had seen me leaving the synagogue, and I needed the glasses to _ see _, so… There was only one thing I could hide. And I did a really good job of hiding it. So good I even fooled myself for a while. Just…” he makes a show of counting on his fingers, “like, twenty-seven years.”

He tells the truth about falling in love with his best friend.

“Your first crush is always painful, but mine came with that little extra danger,” Richie says, “It’s like, if I tell you how I feel, will you reject me? Will you tell everyone in school I’m gay? Will my body have to be dragged up from the river? You know, in the town where I’m from, a guy was beaten up and thrown off a bridge for being gay. But, you know, it was a different time when that happened… a month ago.”

He tells the truth, and then the show is coming to an end, and Richie is shaky and elated and _ relieved _.

“Thank you so much for... not hating this,” he says, “I was more scared to do this show than I have been scared of, like, anything. And I’m really fucking scared of clowns. I shit my pants just driving past McDonalds.”

Richie mimes driving with an exaggerated uneasy expression, stepping hard on the accelerator.

“You know, I’ve never done this show before because I didn’t think I was brave enough. But I think we can all be brave, in our own way. You just have to believe in yourself. And if you don’t, maybe you have a friend who does. I wanna say thank you to my friends for um, putting up with me. Bill, Ben, Mike, Bev, Stan… Eddie.”

He nods to the audience.

“Thank you.”

The applause is deafening. There are waves of it, louder and harder than anything he’s heard before. A standing ovation starts somewhere in the middle and ripples out to the whole theatre, until everyone is on their feet.

And Richie – Richie can’t help it if his eyes are wet.

* * *

When he gets backstage, Todd is alternating between crying and looking at his phone.

“We’re trending on Twitter,” he says, his voice shaky.

“Oh,” Richie says, dumbly.

“You,” Todd says, fanning his eyes, “Are _ not _ allowed to make me cry like this.”

“But you look so pretty when you cry, baby,” Richie says.

“Please don’t tell any more jokes tonight,” Todd says, and pulls him into a bone-crushing hug.

“Oh,” Richie says, “Okay. We can do that.”

* * *

The next day, Richie’s green room is filled with flowers, and Todd is beside himself.

“Who are these even _ from_?” Richie says, almost falling over it all.

“Everyone,” Todd says, “Fans, collaborators, LGBT organisations, politicians – there’s one over there from Lady fucking Gaga.”

“Jesus, it’s like gay Christmas.”

Richie turns to Todd, raising an eyebrow.

“Sooo, what did you get me?”

“My unwavering and unconditional love and support. As always. Right, stand there, we need to get a picture of this for Instagram.”

* * *

It’s only later that a bunch of flowers catches Richie’s eye – a rainbow of blooms with a red balloon attached. The note says, _ Trashmouth – If Eddie was here, he’d tell us how proud he was. And tell you he’d fucked your mom. All our love, The Losers Club x _

Richie laughs and cries all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richie’s manager doesn’t actually have a name in the movie, so I went with Todd. Just thought it suited him.
> 
> I do actually have a few ideas for continuing this, so... Yeah. Maybe.


	2. Ellen from Ellen

“Richie, Richie, Richie,” Todd says, sweeping into Richie’s hotel room, “I have news!”

Richie groans and rolls over in bed, onto his back.

“Do you ever think we need to set better boundaries in place, you know, as manager and client?”

“Ellen wants you on the show.”

“Ellen who?” Richie says.

“Ellen from  _ Ellen,  _ Ellen.”

Richie frowns.

“What does she want me for?” 

“She’s gay, you’re gay, keep up!” 

The mattress dips as Todd sits on the bed. Richie rolls his eyes and sits up blearily, rubbing his eyes. Being on tour is exhausting, and dealing with the media circus of coming out is exhausting, and grieving for his best friend is exhausting. He thinks he could sleep for a week and still be tired.

“She’s going to want to talk about your big coming out story,” Todd says, “Press speculation is that you came out now because you’ve met someone, so you can bet the network will want you to reveal who it is on the show. Good for ratings.”

“Why?”

“People love love. It’d be like a gay fairytale.”

Richie grimaces, reaching to the bedside table for his glasses.

“Can’t I just say I didn’t want to hide who I am anymore?”

“No, not interesting,” Todd says, not looking up from his phone.

“I… want to use my platform to stand up for gay kids?”

“I’m  _ already bored _ .”

Richie sighs.

“I didn’t meet someone, okay. I lost someone.”

He takes off his glasses, looks down at them.

“Remember when I was sick when I got that call? And then I went to Derry for the weekend? Well, my friend from back home… died. And, the thing is, he was the one… he was the one…”

Richie looks up at Todd.

“I wish I could tell Ellen I’m finally with the love of my life. I wish I could say we’re happy and we live together in a house and we have a puppy. But I can’t. Because Eddie is dead and sometimes I wish I was too because life isn’t a fucking fairytale.”

* * *

  
Richie gets a standing ovation just walking onto the set of  _ The Ellen Show _ . He’s a comedian, used to earning every laugh and applause, and it feels like too much. But Ellen is warm and good at what she does, and she asks him a few easy questions first to help him get into it. And then she drops the big one.

“So we’re all really happy for you. I have to ask, is there anyone special in your life right now?”

“Not at the moment, no,” Richie says, “I figured that the first step to finding someone was… you know, being honest about who I wanted to be with. Before, my friends would be like ‘I’ve met the perfect woman for you!’ and I’d be there thinking, ‘oh, honey’.”

“Well, maybe we can help you out there,” Ellen says, “Do you have any celebrity crushes?”

“Oh,” Richie says, “I don’t know. Maybe Zachary Quinto?”

There’s a cheer from the audience. He turns towards them.

“You guys like him?”

They cheer louder.

“We had him on the show a while back,” Ellen says, “Maybe we can find his number.”

“Wow, what a call  _ that  _ would be,” Richie says.

He mimes holding a phone to his ear.

“Hi, is that Zachary Quinto? Yeah, Ellen gave me your number.”

“It could happen,” Ellen laughs.

“God, you know I’m so paranoid he’s gonna be right behind me now. You know when you do that thing when you’re like, ‘So I hear you like Zachary Quinto’ and I’m like ‘Ellen you didn’t’ and he just… appears.”

“Maybe next time!”

Ellen waits for the laughter to die down.

“When I decided to come out,” she says, “It had become this big secret that I really couldn’t hide anymore, and I really didn’t  _ want _ to hide anymore. You’ve been in the public eye for a while now – was that how it was for you?”

“To be honest,” Richie says, “I never really felt like I was hiding. I’m a comedian known for making offensive jokes – I get accused of misogyny and objectifying women a lot. I really don’t think anyone would have believed I was gay unless I came out and said it myself.”

“So why did you choose to?”

“A few weeks ago, a young man was killed in the town I grew up in. His name was Adrian Mellon, and he was killed because he was gay. He was beaten and thrown off this bridge we called The Kissing Bridge. If you had a sweetheart, you’d scratch your names into the bridge and… and I remember doing that, when I was young, and I was in love and so,  _ so _ scared. I’ve been scared all my life. But young people, people like Adrian – they shouldn’t have to be.”

Richie takes a breath.

“I realised that hiding who I was meant I was letting the bullies win again. And they’ve been winning all my life. Bullies are the reason I’m a comedian – I was always making jokes as like, a coping mechanism. Bullies are the reason I was too scared to be with the person I loved. I’m still scared now. But I realised recently that being brave is something you do when you’re scared as hell.”

The audience claps, and Ellen does too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this fic is a bit of an anti fix-it? Nothing is fixed, it’s just... Richie, trying to get by.


End file.
